The Speaker of the House of Representatives issued a third ruling to the government on Friday, asking it to inform the House about the steps being taken to implement the report of the committee formed to investigate the Balkumari incident where two youths died in a clash with the police.

The committee headed by Shekhar Poudel, a former high court judge, has pointed to the negligence of Prakash Jwala, the minister for physical infrastructure and transport, as one reason behind the deadly December 29 incident.

Opposition parties at the February 18 meeting of the House had demanded the minister’s dismissal.

Following the ruling from Speaker Devraj Ghimire, Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal had pledged on the day to take necessary action after receiving the report. As he failed to act on his commitment, the opposition lawmakers on Thursday had obstructed House proceedings until Ghimire issued another ruling for the government to appear before the House and respond to their concerns.

However, no government representative showed up at the House meeting on Friday to inform Parliament of the issues raised by the opposition that had led to House obstruction. The first meeting of the House on Friday was adjourned as the opposition and ruling party lawmakers clashed and blamed each other for not maintaining Parliament’s dignity. Another meeting was called the same day after an agreement that another ruling would be issued to the government to respond to the opposition.

“Reminding of similar rulings in the past, I would like to ask the government to respond to the concerns raised in the House,” said Ghimire. Opposition lawmakers said they would wait until Monday for the prime minister to announce that he has sacked Jwala, along with Minister for Health and Population Mohan Bahadur Basnet and Minister for Culture, Tourism and Civil Aviation Sudan Kirati.

Basnet is under the scanner of the Commission for Investigation of Abuse of Authority for alleged corruption in the procurement of the Telecommunication Traffic Monitoring and Fraud Control System (TERAMOCS) for the Nepal Telecommunication Authority while Kirati has been blamed of involvement in a controversial decision to lease out Ramgram Stupa in Lumbini.

“The prime minister is avoiding the House meetings. Next meetings have been slated for Sunday and Monday. We’ll wait until Monday for him to announce that he has sacked the three ministers,” said Mahesh Bartaula, the CPN-UML whip. “If that doesn’t happen, we know how to drag him [Dahal] to the House.”

The Rastriya Swatantra Party and the Rastriya Prajatantra Party have the same voice when it comes to punishing ministers. Stating that the ministers from their parties had resigned on moral grounds in the past when there were some allegations against them, they asked the ministers in the Dahal Cabinet to demonstrate minimum morality.

The Poudel-led investigation committee had on February 17 submitted its report to Narayan Kaji Shrestha, deputy prime minister and minister for home affairs. Two days later, he handed over the report to Dahal. Speaking in the Cabinet meeting on February 19, Dahal had said he would study the report and take necessary action accordingly. But he is yet to act as per his announcement.

Birendra Shah from Achham and Sujan Rawat of Dailekh had lost their lives on December 29 after the police used force to contain the protest. A clash erupted between the aspirants for jobs as migrant workers in South Korea and the police, resulting in the fatalities.

The Korean language test candidates were staging protests demanding an opportunity to appear for language tests for manufacturing jobs in South Korea. Those who failed the language proficiency test for shipbuilding jobs had taken to the streets demanding admission for language tests to qualify for manufacturing jobs.

Jwala took the tense route to return to Singha Durbar after attending a party meeting. The protesters attacked his vehicle, which led the security to use force. Jwala comes from the CPN (Unified Socialist), a fringe party in Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal’s seven-party ruling coalition.

On January 1, the government constituted a three-member investigation panel led by Poudel. The committee inspected the incident site, and recorded statements of several individuals including eyewitnesses, families of victims, media persons, injured persons, specialist doctors and those involved in the incident.

“I want to warn that we will not allow the House to function if the government keeps on neglecting our demands,” said Rastriya Prajatantra Party chief whip Gyanendra Shahi.